Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Although the general public are at least four months off seeing the first crop of Written Tycoons in action, five of his progeny have been named and, as you’d imagine, there’s a couple of creative monikers among them.
The $85,000 colt from Grammy Award – part of the Eliza Park’s Melbourne Premier draft and the most expensive Written Tycoon sold to date – is called Tycoon Warrior and another lovely colt (ex Kassiyaka) will raced as Printed.
Couldn’t say with any accuracy as to where Tamban (ex Obsessed With Ella) springs from, but the two favourites are Hetty G (ex Lady of Loudoun) and Khashoggi (ex Purely).
Hetty Gee – we assume – is named after Hetty Green, the first businesswoman to make it big on Wall Street after kicking off as the family bookkeeper.

According to Wikipedia, Hetty was renowned for her ‘frugality’ … supposedly she never turned on the heat or used hot water and only changed her ‘Reg Grundys’ when they wore out.
She never washed her hands – to save on soap – and when her son broke his leg, Hetty tried to have him admitted to a hospital charity ward, storming out when recognised and determining to treat the injury herself. The leg became gangrenous and had to be amputated (leaving him with a cork prosthesis), but the kid got his own back eventually.
After she died at 81 – evidently due to apoplexy caused by a blue over the price of skimmed milk – the son quickly worked his way through the family fortune, purchasing – among other extravagances – a diamond-encrusted chamber pot.
Full marks to the filly’s new owners and let’s hope she wins enough money for all connections to afford their own chamber pots.

Same goes for the owners of Khashoggi – clearly named after the Turkish-Saudi Arabian arms dealer and business tycoon Adnan Khashoggi.
Implicated in the Iran-Contra and Lockheed bribery scandals, Khashoggi was considered richest man in the world in the 80s and was uncle of Princess Di’s last squeeze Dodi Al-Fayed.